As we edge closer to Election Day, we are united in not being united at all.

Nov. 7 is a great metaphor for North County: Just as the freeways slice through our communities, we are carved up by dozens of issues vying for our attention, far more than the few we share in common. The eyes of the nation might be on whether the Republican or Democratic party will control the U.S. House and Senate. The eyes of North County are bleary with ballot overload.

If you live in Carlsbad, you might be hotly debating with your neighbors the merits of Proposition D versus Proposition E, the dueling measures that will decide the future of farmland along Cannon Road east of Interstate 5.

If you live in Vista, you probably have very little interest in that issue, because your hot button is being pushed by a measure to increase the sales tax a half-cent for the next three decades.

Oceanside, Carlsbad and Vista residents have to decide on a bond measure to expand Tri-City Medical Center, but that won't show up on the ballots – or radar – of folks in Escondido, where seven people are running for two city council seats and there is a mayoral race as well.

Yes, there are issues we'll all be asked to vote on, such as the largest transportation bond in state history, as well as the races for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, attorney general and one U.S. Senate seat – and let's not forget the advisory vote on the airport. But if there is a rallying cry this political season, it's “Enough already!”

If ever there were an argument for using a mail-in ballot, this election cycle would be it. Sitting in the comfort of your home, with time to ponder all issues big and small, would seem a natural choice. The number of voters using the absentee option continues to increase, and this time around, half of all the votes cast in California may be through the mail. If it is the easier option, then local jurisdictions should make all ballots mail-in, and more people would vote, right?

Thad Kousser is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California San Diego who has been studying the phenomenon. Kousser and Megan Mullin, an assistant professor of political science at Temple University, have come up with an interesting conclusion that doesn't follow conventional wisdom.

“What we found is that the actual act of voting by mail doesn't change anything,” Kousser said. “It doesn't increase turnout; it makes people slightly less likely to vote, by 1 to 3 percent. And it doesn't decrease ballot drop-off; they do drop off a little more.”

“Drop off” describes the practice of voting for the candidates or issues at the top of the ballot, but gradually voting in fewer and fewer races while navigating the long list of choices. The researchers call these effects small, but statistically significant.

The pair studied precincts in 18 California counties in the 2000 presidential and the 2002 gubernatorial races in which the county registrars assigned those precincts to be mail-in only – the voters had no choice – because the populations were so small. Those voters were compared with voters who went to the polls in those counties.

Traditionally, mail-in ballots are used by people who ask for them and probably are more motivated to fill them in and return them, Kousser said. Why those who get mail-in ballots not by choice have a different reaction is still an area for study.

Maybe the idea that you have time to sit in your quiet living room to make these heavy decisions isn't as valid a concept as originally thought. Not everyone's home is a peaceful castle.

Between the children and their friends and the heavy-metal band practice in the garage, I would have to climb out on the roof to get any quiet in my house, and I don't like heights, so that option is out.

There's more conventional wisdom that's changing: Those who vote by mail aren't necessarily older or more conservative in their political views.

“As more and more (people) vote absentee, they are looking more and more like everybody else,” Kousser said. “Normally, you could rely on absentee ballots to be Republican, and that's not happening anymore.”

Whether you are among the growing numbers who already have voted by mail, or the traditionalists who will touch the computer screen Tuesday, maybe there is one thing we can all be united in after all – the blessed relief that this election season is just about over.